Whumptober: Day 17 - Stay With Me
by Lif61
Summary: As a human Castiel receives his first serious injury, and fearing the worst, he calls Dean. Dean uses everything at his disposal (Ezekiel included) to rush to his side, and does what he can.


**A/N: Written for day 17 of Whumptober 2019.**

**I did my best to make this have the tone of a few minutes of an episode, so there are some unfinished pieces to it, but it will remain a one-shot as I'm too busy working on other pieces. I just wanted it to feel like part of what we all love so much.**

**Prompt: "stay with me"**

**WARNINGS: This fic contains graphic depictions of violence, non-con possession, a sort of temporary character death, and CPR.**

* * *

At first Castiel didn't even know what had happened to him. Nothing hurt, everything seemed fine except he was on the ground. Yes, that was the only perceivable difference for a second or two. He had been standing in an alley by a dumpster and some ripped open bags of trash that he'd been going through minutes before, and then he was on the ground. Then the other homeless in the alley were suppressing their screams, and the person who'd been attacking him was running forward and pulling something from his gut.

_That_ hurt.

Castiel screamed, hands shaking, clutching at the gaping wound in his stomach.

He'd been stabbed. Oh! He'd been stabbed!

The sudden pain and blood loss had him lying his head down, and he was barely conscious as he was dragged to the back of the alley near a scuffed and beaten chain-link fence. After a kick to the head that he barely registered they left him there to go through the trash pile that he'd been going through. Apparently they'd heard something good was in it.

Being human (which was still a newer experience), Castiel knew that other humans who were cruel and needed something could be violent. He'd seen others act that way, but he hadn't known something like this would happen to him. Not all of them were like this. Most weren't.

Thankfully they left quickly, and he held his blood inside himself with one hand, making sure the pressure hurt, which had him crying out through gritted teeth. He had heard something about the two other homeless men calling him unkind words he'd rather not repeat.

He had his phone out, calling Dean, hating himself, hating everything.

Dean's voice sounded pained, resigned, "Cas, I told you, you gotta stay away."

His heart stung at those words. This was the man he loved, the only one he really knew and understood. The one he'd die for again and again and again, the one he wanted to kiss better when he was hurt, the one he wanted to kiss just because he could.

"Dean," he choked out, voice rough.

Blood seeped through his fingers.

"Dean, I've been stabbed."

"Holy shit, Cas, give me the coordinates, I'm on my way."

Cas barely remembered giving him the information, wasn't sure if he'd even hung up the phone, and then nothing else made sense to him.

* * *

Cas was too far away, damn it! Dean wasn't going to make it, even if he broke every driving law that existed, even if other drivers on the road didn't exist and he just put pedal to the metal.

"_Sam!_" Dean cried out, projecting his voice as much as he could as he stomped into the library. "_Sammy!_"

Sam rushed in, hair a little fluffed up from how fast he must've walked. His forehead was crinkled with worry.

"I'm here, what's up?"

"Cas got stabbed. I need a teleportation spell to get to him _now_."

Dean was already perusing the shelves, looking through books, opening some up, and then throwing them down when he saw they didn't serve him. Sam flinched as he approached him.

"Whoa, slow down. Cas got stabbed? Where is he?"

"He's over near fucking Montrose, Colorado, and if memory of Dad hauling our asses all over the country as kids serves me right we're looking at an eleven — maybe _twelve_ — hour drive, and that's without any stops."

"Did he say if he could get to a hospital?"

"Yeah, Sam, we had a lovely chat about the nicest hospitals in the area and which ones had the hottest nurses, and he said he'd get there right away." Sam gave him one of his facial expressions that clearly said _fuck you_ and then Dean went on, "No. We gotta help him!"

Sam reached for a book, commented, "He really should've stayed with us."

Dean snapped: "Now's really not the time!"

Dean looked and looked, but he wasn't finding anything, and he was sweating, and he'd been running his hands through his hair. Too much time had passed.

"Hey, you got anything?"

"No, nothing," Sam answered, flipping pages furiously.

Books littered the floor where Dean had been, and the table near Sam was full of them.

Dean took a deep breath, willing to try this and got a little below Sam to make eye contact with him, looking deep, trying to see past him.

"_You_ got anything?"

"Dean, what are you talking about? I just told you n—"

Suddenly his brother's back straightened, his eyes glowed blue, and he was very clearly standing _above_ Dean. That wasn't Sammy anymore. Ezekiel.

"What you're proposing—"

"Is gonna save Cas. I know your wings are damaged, but you got something, right? Spells, potions, sigils? Something!"

"I am an angel, Dean, here to heal your brother. I am not some lap dog. And I cannot go to Castiel. He may discover me."

"Yeah, yeah, we've been over this before. You don't have to go. _I'll _go. Just _please_. I… I can't _do this_ without him."

"Do what?" the angel asked, circling him, eyeing him up and down.

Wow, this featherless puppet with a stick up his ass really didn't understand how humans worked. Dean was close to crying, he was so frustrated. He was so overwhelmed he wanted to break something, scream, and then maybe curl up in a corner and play music so loudly he hurt his ears.

"This!" he screamed, gesturing with his arms. "This shitty life. The angels falling, Hell still being open, God being a dickbag, my brother being fucked up, me feeling like a god damn piece of shit. All of it! I _need_ him." He lowered his voice, and he cursed himself as a tear trailed down his right cheek. "I need him. Please, you just gotta do me this favor. Just get me there, and-and, you don't have to heal him. I'll do it normal, take him to a hospital.

"If Sam finds out he may expel me."

"Sam's not gonna find out. Come on, we're wasting time here. You got anything?"

"There is a spell."

"Good, give it to me."

"There are… consequences."

"Ain't there always?" Dean clapped his hands together. "Lay it on me."

Ezekiel outlined the spell to Dean. It didn't require much. Just something that belonged to Castiel (easy, he had one of his feathers, which he'd been assured would work, even in his human form), graveyard dirt (which didn't bode well with Dean for Castiel's state), some salt, and a bit of angel Grace. The angel Grace would be the harder part, but obviously Sam wasn't going to know. After getting told about all this, Ezekiel let Sam in control again.

"—o." Sam looked to the right, and then frowned, and he raised his hand a bit, finger pointing at Dean. "Dude, you were just standing over there, now you're here.

Dean made a face as if Sam were being dumb. "No, I've been here the whole time." Guilt and anxiety bubbled in his stomach. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Alright, think I actually saw something in a book awhile back. Thought it was nothing, but now I'm not so sure."

"Um… okay."

Sam stood there, a little confused, but then started going through his book again, as Dean rushed over to his pile and tried to keep up his energy from earlier. Though, he wasn't faking much of it, terrified that any second put Cas in more danger.

"Got it!" Dean cried, hauling a random book into his lap. He pretended to read, making himself sound stuffy and boring, listing off the ingredients, and failing to include the angel Grace.

"That's great!" Sam commented, coming over. Dean closed the book, picked it up, and nonchalantly held it at his side, hoping his brother wouldn't see the cover and realize he was a fraud. "We got all that stuff right here."

"Let's get to it."

* * *

It didn't take long to assemble the stuff they needed, and once Dean had a fairly extensive first aid kit Ezekiel came to help. Dean faked saying a few words in an Enochian-Latin hybrid after Sam was well… Sam, the pile of ingredients glowing. Time to hit the road.

"Alright, I'll go," Dean said.

"Dude, it's Cas!"

"Which is why you have to stay here, hold down the fort in case word gets out that he's been hurt."

"What?"

"Someone might be using this against us, trying to lure us out. _I'll go_."

"Fine, but call as soon as you can."

"You got it, baby bro."

Dean crouched down, touched his hand to the glowing pile of ingredients, and then he was off.

Dean landed with his feet on hard, wet concrete, and it was cold. Drizzling rain lightly tapped at his skin, an unpleasant touch on his cheeks. He squinted his eyes, tilting his head. There was a lump of something vaguely-human shaped at the end of the garbage-ridden alley, the clothes on the body wet, and in some places maroon.

"Cas!" Dean cried, realizing that must be him. His face was hidden from him as it was tucked in against his chest, but the dark hair… It was definitely his angel.

He ran over to him, and was holding his head up immediately. Castiel's eyes fluttered open.

"Dean?"

"Stay with me, baby. Stay with me."

He was moving Castiel's hand aside, which was over the stab wound that was in his gut. He'd apparently kept it there as he'd waited for Dean, but his strength had waned, and his hand had slipped lower, and there was almost no pressure on it now. He was going to bleed out.

Fuck, fuck, fuck…

Dean undid his belt, and wrapped it tight around Cas' chest as he talked to him. "Hey, okay, this is gonna hurt like a motherfucker, but we can laugh about it later, okay? Maybe use it to pick up some girls, huh? Or maybe some guys? Guys are cute, right?" Now really wasn't the time to check on Cas' sexuality, but hey, random words were coming out of Dean's mouth, and he was panicking, even though his hands were steady. "Gonna have a badass scar. It'll match the one I have on the opposite side. Got it from a wendigo." He tightened his belt, glad to hear the pained grunt Castiel heard because he knew that meant the tourniquet was working. Blood stopped flowing so quickly, and Dean quickly secured the leather.

Good, good. God, he wasn't going to be able to take care of this on his own all out here. He had to call an ambulance.

Dean put a hand to Castiel's cheek, and then ran it through his hair. With his other hand he took out his phone.

"Dean."

"Yeah, I'm right here. Gonna get you some help. Just stay with me, alright?"

"Dean."

"You gonna stay with me?"

"I'm gonna… stay with you."

"That's what I like to hear."

Dean had a hand to the back of Cas' neck, stroking reassuringly, not minding all the sweat, as he called an ambulance. Cas raised his arm to hold onto his wrist. Dean used his own arm to press it against his torso, keeping his elbow low to keep some extra blood in, though the tourniquet was doing a pretty good job.

After hanging up the phone, Dean continued rambling, clothes growing wet from the damp, dirtied concrete.

Castiel's hand fell from him.

"Cas?" He looked down at him. His eyes were half-open, gazing sightlessly. "No! No, no, no, no, no. Cas! _Cas!_"

Not being gentle, not caring, looking down, just seeing that Cas was _dead_, that he wasn't _breathing_, he wasn't _with him_, Dean moved him away from the fence, and got him onto his back. He tilted his head back, tore his shirt open to make sure he was properly aligning his hands on his breastbone, and he started the chest compressions.

"Stay with me, Cas! Stay with me! God damn it! Come on!"

Thirty. He'd hit thirty compressions.

He grabbed Castiel's chin and head, tilting his head back more, pinched his nose, and brought his lips to his once he'd manually opened his mouth,. He breathed twice, filling his lungs with his own air, giving him his own life.

And it was back to compressions.

Tears had started streaming down his face.

"Come on! _Come on!_ Stay with me, baby! Stay with me! I'm sorry I kicked you out of the bunker. I'm sorry I hurt you like that. I'm sorry you fell, I'm sorry I'm a piece of fucking shit who doesn't deserve someone as perfect and beautiful as you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" His last words broke off into a sob, but he'd been counting in his head, or at least trying to. He was sure he'd hit thirty again.

Once again, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth, pinched his nose, and _breathed_. God, he tried to breathe everything he could into him. Breath, and strength, and life, and love, and all their years of friendship. The first breath had Dean sobbing into his mouth, and on the second, Castiel breathed in.

Dean breathed in, relieved, and pulled away from him. Castiel was coughing, and then breathing heavily, rolling onto his side, curling into Dean's arms. Dean just cried, hand to Cas' cheek.

"Oh my god, Cas. Oh my god. You came back to me."

"I didn't want to leave," he groaned. He was experiencing full-body shudders now, skin all clammy. Dean wished he could make it stop, but he was glad his body was experiencing things again.

Dean kissed him on the top of the head, not giving a damn, and Castiel held onto him, grip tighter than before.

They hugged, as best they could with Castiel injured, and Castiel's lips pressed against his ear.

"I'm gonna stay with you, Dean."

Sirens sounded in the distance, and Dean breathed a sigh of relief, closing his eyes. More tears fell.


End file.
